What Do You Say
by Lady Maria
Summary: Buffy’d barely been twentyone. They’d only been married three years. It wasn’t fair! “Cam,” fifteen year old Bethie asked quietly, “why did Mama have to die?”


What Do You Say

_Another response to Candle's challenge. _

_Catlimere, get out the tissues.  I still don't own anything. The song's by Reba McEntire. The c.d. I keep using is so good for this challenge._

  
  


**Stuck at a red light outside and adult bookstore**

**His son said, "Daddy, what are all the X's for?" **

**As the light turned green he changed the subject fast. **

**He started talkin' 'bout football as they drove right past. **

Shawn Michaels looked over at his son.  Cameron would have a sibling soon; that was why they were going to the hospital. He was only seven, but in the past few months, he'd kept their family centered.

"Daddy," Cameron asked, "what are those X's for?  Sometimes in the locker room, the books your friends are reading have them, too."

"So," he switched the subject as the light changed, "out of the greats, who do you think is the best?"

"Dad-dy," Cameron whined, "you're avoiding the subject."

"Well," he repeated, "who do you think is the greatest?"

**What do you say in a moment like this? **

**When you can't find the words oh to tell it like it is. **

**Just bite your tongue and let your heart lead the way. **

**Let's get out of here, oh what do you say? **

Cam tilted his head.  "Hulk Hogan is."

"Not the Rock?" Shawn asked. 

"No, because the Rock is still around. But Vince fired Hulk Hogan."  Cam figured that it was normal for boys to discuss topics like this with their parents. 

It wasn't but Cam didn't know that.  He'd been born into the wrestling business.  And it was all he knew.

**Seventeen years old, she was out with her friends. **

**They started drinkin' at some party 'til she was three sheets to the wind. **

**Her momma always told her she could call no matter what. **

**She was cryin' on the front steps when her mom showed up. **

Willow thought back four years.  It was about two weeks before the battle where she couldn't give Angelus his soul back.  She, Amy, Cordelia, Kendra, and Buffy had all gone out to the Bronze.

Amy had wandered over to talk to someone and didn't return; years had passed and Willow still didn't know what Amy had done that night.  But she knew that the rest of them had gotten drunk. All except Kendra and Buffy, who had both stayed sober. 

But neither of them could drive, so they'd called Buffy's mom. The next day she'd scolded all of them, even Kendra and Buffy.  She'd been cool that night though. She hadn't even raised her voice.

Willow sighed.  She was twenty-one and pregnant for the second time.  She figured that if she could make it through raising one werewolf cub basically by herself, she'd be able to do the same with this one.

Oz came through her life about twice a year.  Three year old Jesse didn't know that 'Rainbow' was his father.  Neither of them planned to enlighten any of the children they might ever have together.

But pregnancy was a bitch for causing one to relive the memories you never wanted to go through again.

**What do you say in a moment like this? **

**When you can't find the words oh to tell it like it is. **

**Just bite your tongue and let your heart lead the way. **

**Let's get out of here, oh what do you say? **

She didn't know where Cordelia was.  She hadn't talked to her since high graduation.  Once again, that event was not been a pleasant memory.

Faith had died at Graduation and another Slayer had been Called.  Becca was nice, but she wasn't Buffy.

Xander had fallen hard for her though. And Becca had taken his death at the hands of a Mohra demon really hard.  Every creature that went bump was found and killed before she stood and laughed in the face of one of Drusilla's minions. 

She'd pretty much committed suicide.

Amy had died at Graduation as well.  Willow wondered sometimes what would have happened if Buffy had been there.

But she hadn't been.  She'd left after sending Angelus to Hell. She'd been really upset about it too.  

She'd found out later that Joyce had kicked Buffy out of the house.  Buffy hadn't told the rest of them; she'd just take off for parts unknown.

** Sometimes you've got to listen to the silence. **

**And give yourself a little time to think.**

She had to wonder if her decision had been the correct one sometimes.  Even back right after the battle, though, she'd felt herself gasping for air. 

Her heart had never been that strong.  It was some type of congenital heart defect; it ran in the family. Her cousin Celia had been in the hospital because she'd caught a cold and couldn't shake it when she died.

But when she'd been Called, she'd found herself feeling stronger than she had in years.  After the fight with the Master, she'd found that strength slipping.  After she'd sleep, though, she'd feel like she had when she'd first been Called. 

She was still the Slayer, she knew that.  But she was a Slayer who had been lucky to live long enough to receive the Call. She'd left a lot of the slaying to Kendra as time went on.  Kendra had known that something was wrong with her but she hadn't known what exactly.

After she'd sent Angel to Hell, she'd seen her chance. She left.  She didn't even change her name.  

She figured that she was lucky to have made it for four more years. Her family was wonderful.  

She knew that Kevin would take care of them after she was gone.  It was just his way.

It wouldn't be much longer now.

**Her every breath is weaker than the last. **

**And lately when she sleeps she talks about the past. **

**Her husband knows she's tired of holdin' on. **

**She looks at him and says I want to go home.**

He watched her as she slept. He didn't know much about her past but he knew that it troubled her.  

She didn't waste her breath on talking anymore; she gave that energy to the baby. But at night, when she was sleeping, she'd call out random names.

He didn't know who Jenny was or Kendra.  Willow, Xander, Giles, and Cordelia were other names she often called out.  But it was to those first two she always returned.  Dreams about someone by the name of Angel or Angelus caused her to sweat and cry out.  For those dreams he had to be there.

Who was he kidding? He had to be there because he loved her.

"Shawn," her weak voice alerted him to the fact that she was awake, "I want to die at home."

**What do you say in a moment like this? **

**When you can't find the words to tell it like it is. **

He tensed. "Honey, you aren't going to die."

"Yes, I am," she responded.  "I know that and so do you.  Tell Cam to get in here. I want to talk to him." 

Cam came in.  He knew that she wasn't the woman who'd given birth to him, but she was still his mom. "Hi, Mama.  How're you?"

**Just close your eyes and let your heart lead the way. **

**Oh, what do you say? **

His smile warmed her heart. "Baby, you know how we talked about how sometimes, just sometimes, the angels come to get people before they're ready to go?"

Cam nodded.  

"Baby, the angels want me to go home with them.  I don't want to leave you and your daddy and the new baby, but I can't hold on much longer, baby."

"Why do you have to go, Mama?  I want you to stay."

"I do too, baby boy."  Just before she let sleep take her again, she whispered, "I do, too."

**Just close your eyes and let your heart lead the way. **

**Oh, what do you say?**

The doctor came out; the look on her face was grave.  "Mr. Michaels, you have a healthy baby girl.  She's tiny; only five pounds, but she's holding her own."

Shawn sighed in despair.  He knew what it was that the doctor hadn't said.  "Buffy's dead, isn't she?"

"I'm sorry.  Her heart was just too weak."

"It isn't like we hadn't expected it," he murmured. Within him, however, his heart was breaking.  She'd barely been twenty-one.  They'd only been married three years. Damn it, it wasn't fair!

**Ooo, what do you say?**

"Cam," fifteen year old Bethie asked quietly, "why did Mama have to die?"

He looked over at his little sister. She seemed so grown up sometimes.  She'd always been so different than he had been growing up.  He'd been loud and obnoxious while she'd been quieter.

But they had both been blessed with wrestling in their blood.  Well, maybe they'd been cursed.  They'd grown up traveling from arena to arena. Their father loved them, but he couldn't get wrestling out of his blood.

Even after he'd retired from actually wrestling, and they'd started wrestling themselves, Shawn hadn't left the business.

Instead, he'd become an announcer.  It suited him well. 

But they rarely talked about the woman who'd died giving birth to Bethie.  They simply visited her grave once a year, on Bethie's birthday.

To other families, that would have seemed morbid but it was just part of their traditions.

Cameron sighed.  "I don't know, Beth."  Her eyes widened. It was rare for anyone in the company to call her anything but Bethie. "I do know that she didn't want to die."

She gazed around the town that the company had stopped in.  As they walked into the Haven Coffee Shop, she commented, "This place is creeping me out."

Her brother laughed at her subject change but nodded. "You wouldn't expect that of a place called Sunnydale, would you?"

"No. How long do we have to stay here?  Because I may take out all my pent up violence on some poor unsuspecting person if we don't leave soon."

Cameron laughed, the first laugh Bethie had heard from him since they'd entered the strange town.

Willow, who ran the coffee shop, looked up.  It was unusual for her customers to comment on the odd energy that surrounded the town.

"Relax, Bethie.  We'll be in Sacramento by nightfall."

"Great," she moaned, "so I get to explain to Uncle Kevin that I'm fifteen and have a sex life this trip, don't I?"

Cameron shrugged. "I went through it on a Seattle to Sacramento trip when I was sixteen. It's not that bad.  I promise."

"Sure," she rolled her eyes, "but that was six years ago, Cam.  And you weren't the baby of the Kliq."

"True."

Willow shook her head as seventeen year old Karen, who was the current activated Slayer through Kendra's line, went to get the pair's orders. Instead, she slipped out from behind the counter and went herself.

"What can I get you folks?"  She'd recognized something in the girl when she'd rolled her eyes.

"Two hot chocolates with extra marshmallows, please."  Cameron was the one who spoke, since Bethie had decided that checking her voice mail was entertaining.

"Absolutely," Willow grinned. "If you want to, we have a photo gallery of some of the people that would have liked the Haven over there.  Feel free to check it out."

"Would have?" Bethie asked, looking up from her task.

"They've all been dead for several years at the very least."  Willow's heart ached like it always did when she thought of all the people who'd ended up with their picture on that wall.  Even Buffy had a picture up there, ever since Alyson had been Called fifteen years before.

"That sucks," Bethie said firmly.  She went over to the pictures herself, looking through the captions on each.

There was one of a strange guy playing a guitar, with the caption reading, "Devon died at age twenty-four in a car crash."

Another was of a black girl and a blonde. The caption for that one was heartbreaking in Bethie's book. "The girl on the left is Kendra.  She was murdered by someone she called a friend when she was seventeen.  The girl on the right is Buffy Summers.  We aren't certain how she died, although we think she may have joined Kendra in Heaven while in her early twenties."

Bethie studied the picture a little more closely. "Bro, check this out."

"Bethie," he whined, "why do you want me to look at a picture of someone who has been dead for several years?"

"She's been dead for fifteen years," Bethie said quietly. "She died when she was twenty-one of heart failure."

Cameron gasped. He was almost certain that Bethie thought that she was looking at a picture of their mama, but why would her picture be on this wall?

Karen and Willow both came over to the wall.  Neither of them knew of any of those on the board dying in such a way.  "Which one of the girls?" Karen asked curiously.

"The one you call Buffy Summers, the one in that picture."  Bethie drew in her breath again.  "She died of heart failure because her heart was overtaxed.  She had a child and her heart gave out."

Willow paled. "How do you know that?"

Bethie locked gazes with her.  "Because whatever she was to you, she was the mother I never got the chance to know.  She is still missed in our family, and she will always be missed."

From the street, they heard a call of, "All of ya'll that went in search of a restroom or food, vans are leaving!  That includes Sexy Boy Jr. and I'm a Bitch!"

Cameron laughed. "Wonder who let Uncle Scott sound the call?"

"Probably Stephanie because she was half asleep," Bethie giggled.  "It was nice meeting you.  I hope you understand what happened to your friend now."

"I'll probably never understand why she ran off, but I understand why she died at least."  Willow hugged the dark brunette teen.  "And it was a pleasure to meet her children."

After Willow hugged Cam, the two siblings took off at a full sprint down the sidewalk.

As the company left her hometown, a blonde angel watched from above. "I wish I could be there.  I wish I could be there with all of you."

_A/N: REVIEW! REVIEW! REVIEW!  Alright, now that this fic is done, I'm going to sleep. It's only 3:50 in the morning. REVIEW! REVIEW! REVIEW!_


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